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How Senegalese immigrant preserved the Pulaar language

15/09/2015

We often cite examples of Africans preserving their native languages through a range of measures; so it’s great to see a news story about a Senegalese immigrant in France who helped preserve the Pulaar language.

Souleymane Diamanka recalls the story of his father moving to Bordeaux in the 1970s and staying in touch with family news back home through cassette tapes.

Little did he know that these tapes would then go on to create something amazing in terms of keeping the Pulaar language and Fula culture alive and well.

“The widespread assumption that oral culture suffered due to technology and the rise in written culture, is in this case not a fair assumption. For the Fula from the Fouladou, oral culture in fact ensured the propagation of the written language across the global Fula community, initially spread out across the Sahel belt and now around the world. It is thanks to oral culture that the Pulaar language has had a revival worldwide.”

Read the full article here: The written language is helping to preserve our oral culture

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